Manufacture of pronged hoes



(No Model.)

F. A. SIBLEY.

MANUFACTURE OF PRONGED H033.

N0. 320,978. Patented June 80 1885.

INVENT'O R11 WlTmEssEsx NITED STATES Fries.

PATENT FRANK A. SIBLEY, OF NElVPORT, NElV HAMPSHIRE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 320,978, dated June 30, 1885.

(No model.)

To all whom, it may concern.-

Be it known that I, FRANK A. SIBLEY, of Newport, in the county of Sullivan and State of New Hampshire, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Manufacture of Pronged Hoes, of which the following is a specification.

The object of my invention is to simplify and cheapen the manufacture of pronged hoes; and it consists in the several manipulations of the sheet-meta1 blanks, hereinafter more fully described, and set forth in the claim.

Figure 1 represents a blank of sheetsteel, the lines showing the two hoe-blanks cut apart. Fig. 2 represents a front elevation of a finished hoe, showing the prongs pressed or struck up, and a shank welded onto the back portion. Fig. 3 represents an edge elevation of the complete or finished hoe and shank disconnected. Fig. 4represents afront elevation of a prong before the end has been cut off square. Fig. 5 represents a cross-section of a prong, taken about mid-length.

A represents a rectangular blank of homogeneous sheet-steel, which I thoroughly anneal and place in a proper position between a pair of suitably-formed dies arranged in a powerful press, so as to cut the said blank or sever the same upon the lines shown extending from the upper right-hand corner of Fig. 1, traversing back and forth throughout the same, ending at the bottom left-hand corner of the blank shown, thus separating the same into two pieces of uniform shape and size, and thereby forming upon each a series of prongs, B, gradually tapering toward their ends,which are left rounded or semicircular, so as to leave their upper portions or intersection with the back portion, 0, braced or strengthened at the point liable to the greatest strain in use in the finished hoe. The taper of said prongs B permits them to be easily released from the corresponding spaces thus formed, or the two opposite series of prongs to separate readily when severed by the dies from each other. The two hoe-blanks having been thus cut apart, a scrap or narrow strip, D, is left upon one end of each blank pronged hoe. This is cut off at the point indicated by dotted lines in Fig.1. The hoe-blanks thus cut or formed are heated and placed in a suitable die in a droppress adapted to swage and reduce the thickness of the prongs gradually toward their ends, and increase the width thereof correspondingly, and leave their front faces beveled or oval. Then the rounded lower ends of the prongs are cut off square, as indicated by the dotted lines in Fig. 4., near the bottom thereof. Then the ends of the prongs are ground off on a bevel rearward, or so as to bring the rectangular ends to a suitable'thickness or cutting-edge, as shown in Figs. 2 and 3, representing a complete or finished pronged hoe manufactured in conformity with my im proved art.

The tempering and other well-known details of manufacture have been omitted from the description, as they form no essential feature of my present invention.

The hoe-blanks or finished pronged hoes thus cut, swaged, or dropped upin dies are taken from the dies while quite hot, sufficiently so to be hardened, and then tempered. Then a malleable-iron shank, H, provided at its end portion, L, with two lips, P, leaving a groove or narrow intervening space between them, is adapted to fit upon the edge of the back 0, and is secured thereto by suitable rivets, t, which are driven through holes formed in the parts to receive them, as shown in Fig. 2.

Having thus described my invention,what I claim is The hereindescribed improvement in the art of manufacturing pronged hoes,which consists in taking a rectangular blank of homogeneous sheet-steel and cutting therefrom simultaneously by dies two hoes having prongs that taper gradually toward their ends, so that the prongs of one shall form the spaces of the other, then cutting off one end of each hoe, then dropping by means of dies formed so as to reverse the taper of the prongs by reduc-' 

